Losing Coins of the Realm...

We competed fiercely in the collection of Farthings, Molly and me.  Even in those days when every penny counted and people had very little, a farthing was something often easily discarded by the adults around us because there wasn’t a great deal to be bought with them.  You might think therefore that we would find ourselves knee deep in them on occasions but that simply wasn’t the case.  Farthings were of supreme importance to children not accustomed to having regular money at their disposal because the few things they would actually buy were things we desired.   The choice for a long time was Liquorice Wood or Locust Beans, later to be joined by Bubble Gum and each one of these delights was almost but not quite, forbidden by my mother.   Molly’s mother was decidedly more pragmatic and did not become overly involved in such matters.  Queuing up at the high counter of the news-agency and tobacconist next to Penny, Son & Parker’s on The Hill at Northfleet after school to choose between the available delights could be contemplated pleasantly for most of the school day. 

The child-sized coins we clutched firmly in our hands were small and round, each one displaying a Jenny Wren and had been in circulation since the early 17^th century, production of them only ceasing completely in the mid 1950s.   There were four to a penny and when we had more than four we felt prosperous and Molly would observe that we were Rolling In It.    Old Nan used to describe someone poorer than we were as not having a brass farthing to their name or not having two farthings to rub together.  Conversely we sang the rhyme Oranges and Lemons loudly and lustily, blessing our good fortune and hoping we would find no wriggling white maggots in our locust beans.   Though should we do so, their presence did not unduly affect the consumption.  Billy Elliot, who knew a great deal said they were simply protein anyway and protein was good for you.

We were less likely to have Halfpennies in our pockets with them being two to a penny and not discarded so carelessly.      Molly said she didn’t care for them and in fact they were boring and I agreed with her because I would be most unlikely to find myself in possession of more than one at any particular time.   We had heard that ships could be spoiled for want of a ha’porth of tar and near Christmas joined in the chant wherein if you didn’t have a penny, a ha’penny would do nicely. We understood the contraction because we heard it all around us, no-one ever using the full enunciation.   Molly’s grandmother who lived next door to us at 29 York Road said when she was a girl you could buy an enormous warm bun for a ha’penny, directly from the Baker’s oven.  What’s more she told us about a game she played when she was our age, called Shove Ha’penny, played on a special board and said if they ran out of ha’pennies they simply used pennies and then called the game Push-Penny. I thought she was lucky to have the wherewithal to do so but didn’t say that of course.

The penny was the coin we were best acquainted with because that’s precisely what so many everyday things cost.   You could as a child travel quite a long way on a bus or purchase a sizeable amount of sherbet for instance. It was inconveniently clunky unlike the sleek coins that many years later were to replace it and there were an astonishing 240 of them to each one pound note. Old Maudie Obee at Number 32 was said to collect pennies and store them in jam jars under her bed and was reputed to have at least five pounds worth.  That probably wasn’t true because Hilda Sims who operated the corner shop just opposite Old Maudie’s complained that she had a habit of paying for everything with pennies which was at times inconvenient.    It stood to reason, Molly thought, that the pennies were regularly being used up.   She certainly donated several to us every year leading up to Bonfire Night when we harangued passers by for A Penny for the Guy actually hoping for sixpence.

The unusual and comfortingly shaped 12-sided threepenny bit is easily remembered but most of us will be less familiar with the small silver coin it replaced in 1947.   This was the coin often put into Christmas Puddings and fought over on Christmas Day by siblings.  Colin Bardoe maintained that in his house three coins went into the pudding each year because his mother couldn’t abide the fighting that went on between the boys.   Old Nan stated that in their house they must have more money than good sense then.   The silver threepence was nicknamed the Joey and often called that by our grandparents and sometimes our parents.   At school we learned that originally a Joey was the name given to the Groat which was four pence and went out of circulation in 1855.   The silver threepence simply inherited the name.

A sixpenny piece was generally referred to as a Tanner and as far as we were concerned was quite a sum.   I was given one for my seventh birthday by my Uncle Edgar in a genial mood following an afternoon win at Crayford Dogs and Barbara Scutts told me that was nothing compared with her cousin Daisy who found a tanner under her pillow every time she lost a tooth.  Knowing nothing of this extraordinary and fairly recent tooth tradition Molly and I simply didn’t believe her.   My Grandmother called a Tanner a Bender and said back in her day you could bend them with your fingers and leave tooth marks in them too if you felt so inclined.  You could also easily buy enough gin back then to finance a Bender.  

The long-gone shilling piece, often known as a Bob, was a coin with a long history, first appearing in England around 1550.   The actual word Shilling is believed to come from the Anglo-Saxon Scilling meaning division and that word itself can be traced to Old Norse.  None of this was particularly interesting to us as children as we rarely found ourselves with a shilling to spend.  In school we learned that there were 20 shillings to a pound and that pounds, shillings and pence were written as Lsd standing for Libra, Solidus and Denarius.   The reason was never explained to us but we easily absorbed the intricacies of pre-decimal currency and became familiar with Florins, Half Crowns and ten bob notes unlike the future trickles of American tourists visiting the area primarily on the trail of Pocahontas but eager to investigate brass rubbing at St Botolph’s.   Betty Haddon, politely showing one of these visitors around the church was actually given a ten shilling note which proved they didn’t entirely understand the value – or so it seemed when she showed it to us.

A large, shiny Half a Crown or Half a Dollar was what red-faced uncles fresh from celebratory sessions at The Queen’s Head pressed into the palms of recently born babies. On these occasions my Grandmother would extricate the coin as soon as was possible to ensure it was indeed Half a Dollar and that he wasn’t being Tight Arsed by substituting Two Bob.  The infants whose palms had been crossed had each and every one of them to give up their wealth to their parents who made the important decision as to how to spend it.  Aunt Maud said that didn’t matter because it was to bring the babe good luck and the luck stayed with them for life. 

  There were eight Half Crowns in a Pound and the Pound Sterling itself was usually called a Quid which is a word that has been in use for several hundred years and over time variously described the Guinea or Sovereign.   Where Quid comes from is hard to determine but most likely it is from the Latin phrase Quid Pro Quo which means Something for Something or This for That.    The origin of the term Sterling also has uncertain origins and one theory is that it comes from a silver Saxon coin which was called a Sterling and there were 240 Sterlings in one pound weight of silver.  No one knows for sure even now and we certainly didn’t in the 1940s.

All this once familiar coinage and currency has long since disappeared and been replaced by a system infinitely more convenient.   Very few of us carry actual money around with us these days and having a purse full of pence is hard to get your head around.    Nevertheless how we would have loved that that very tiresome situation back in those post war days.      Cold hard cash was extremely hard to come by and we were certainly not in the habit of receiving pocket money so we had to devise other ways of accessing an income.    

 Returning glass bottles for money was wide spread, very popular and fiercely competitive with Tizer, lemonade and beer bottles much sought after.   Boys were generally more successful than girls in this endeavour and would sometimes scale fences to get to little enclaves of dumped bottles in the properties of those with More Money Than Sense.   Girls like us were more likely to knock on doors and politely ask the householder if there were bottles to return.  This was at times only variably successful and sometimes we were told to bugger off because they were quite capable of returning their own bottles thank you very much!  

Some boys had a good business going in shoveled horse manure which could be sold on to keen gardeners at a penny a shovel’s worth and until 1952 or 53 there were still a reasonable number of horse-drawn carts around.  Molly’s brother Georgie wondered why dog droppings couldn’t be sold on in much the same way because it had to be admitted that the pavements and alleyways of Northfleet were beleaguered with the waste of local pets.   Owners only rarely seemed to take their dogs for formal walks and even when they did so paid scant attention to their toilet arrangements but most animals roamed freely, making whichever corner suited them their place of choice.  Wisely we did not give serious attention to Georgie's idea.

 Another scheme and one that seemed much more exciting and somehow daring was checking Button Bs.   Very few homes had telephones so red telephone kiosks were a familiar feature near bus stops and outside shops.  To make a call you inserted two pennies and pressed Button A.  If no-one was home you pressed Button B to get your money back but often people forgot to do so.   Regularly checking local kiosks was definitely a worthwhile undertaking and on one occasion resulted in us securing six pence.   However, this was definitely not a regular occurrence and in the long run discarded farthings were much more reliable.

Being The Best Parents Possible

 

          My previous blog post on Jean Hendy-Harris Writes - Something to Cry For, elicited a surprising amount of comment overall and it’s very clear that the way we bring up our children has significantly changed since the dark days that followed World War Two.   As a society we are not nearly as punitive as we once were and we’ve largely given up physical punishment altogether in favour of appealing to children’s own sense of what is acceptable and what is not.  Of course a considerable proportion of reasonably intelligent youngsters react well to the change but some do not and perpetually test the boundaries making the lives of many parents harder than they need be.   Schools have long since dispensed with straps and canes in favour of deprivations and detentions which many students applaud but again, some do not.

          I was usually reasonably well behaved at school because I was quite wary of punishment.  Nobody liked being caned although for the most part it was the boys who were and I can only remember one occasion when I seemed to be firmly in the firing line.   Eventually, however, the frustrated Mr Clarke who definitely did not cane on a regular basis, slapped me instead.   I no longer remember what my indiscretion had been but doubt if I repeated it.   However, being a paragon of virtue did not ever extend to my home life and I can well recall a number of unpleasant confrontations with my parents where the problem was invariably what I said rather than what I did that so enraged them.   My long-suffering mother said I was for ever giving her Old Lip and my grandmother agreed that I definitely had a Mouth on Me.  My father did not go in for warnings and when he felt I had gone too far he was inclined to immobilise me with one hand and take to my bare upper legs with the other, saying it was the Thrashing I’d been asking for.    This was both painful and humiliating and once, following such an incident I furiously and foolishly asked what made him think he had the right to beat me.   Old Nan, standing by with a teacup in her hand observed with some satisfaction that if I was Hers, she’d give me another walloping for being a Cheeky Mare.   But he decided not to do so and I was glad.

These days despite our very best parenting efforts, and no matter what strata of society we come from it appears that we should all have worked a lot harder to meet the standards expected of us as from our now fully grown progeny.   No matter how many hours we worked to make sure the best schools were accessed, no matter how much money we spent on toys, books and interesting holidays, like it or not some of us will still come in for a lot of criticism.   It’s abundantly clear that doing the right thing does not always come easily and many of us have failed quite spectacularly.

 I have to be honest and say here and now that I lay a great deal of the blame for the rise of this condemnatory attitude squarely at the feet of Philip Larkin for his particularly divisive This Be The Verse from round about 1970.   Greatly loved by fourteen year old boys and many of their English teachers it has put a lot of their parents off Larkin altogether.   The very fact that permission was given use to obscene language within the walls of Gravesend and Northfleet classrooms, and many other places as well of course, and within the hearing of adults was clearly thrilling to the young of the 1970s.   Little wonder he became the poet of choice for a whole generation and that students who had previously shown no interest whatsoever in verse of any kind suddenly saw themselves as aficionados.  Unsurprising that he was offered the position of Poet Laureate following the death of John Betjeman.   In my mind there is little doubt that Larkin must shoulder some of the responsibility for the ever-growing group of middle aged victims of parental ineptitude.

But we parents of the seventies and eighties should have worked more assiduously at providing less flawed environments within which our children might have grown up without the traumas that have blighted their lives.   More generosity of spirit was perhaps required.    If we are now called insensitive we have only ourselves to blame though there is a school of thought that dictates that working excessive numbers of hours in order to pay for the things in life they seemed to need, was not as essential as giving them sufficient Quality Time.   On the other hand those who abandoned long shifts and did give Quality Time are also falling short of perfection.  Forty year old Sebastian’s non-working mother was recently described by him as Smothering whilst his father who worked extra hard was said to be Distant and frequently Absent.  It’s sad really that between them this highly motivated and intelligent couple could not get it right because had they done so they might have a better relationship with their son now.  

However,  there is a school of thought that says accepting too much accountability for the various failures proliferating the lives of our children is to head towards a slippery slope that Josie says at worst leads towards a form of Elder Abuse which she agrees is something else we didn’t have years ago.  Emily, her 38 year old daughter still blames her for refusing to pay for her to attend Drama School  but Josie argues that there was nobody to pay for her own teenage dreams after all and in the final analysis becoming a shorthand typist, a job she hated at the time, was not the end of the world.

She even adds that she finds herself greatly buoyed in this belief by the recent behaviour of Prince Harry who was briefly mentioned in a previous blog post.  Harry at the age of 36 clearly feels his lot in life is so bad that neither the millions inherited from his mother nor living in a Californian mansion with 16 bathrooms excludes him from complaining that his father was recently merciless enough to cut him off financially.    There is no doubt whatsoever that we are expected to feel compassion for him and little wonder that a host of other thirty-somethings now feel quite at liberty to emulate him.   Laura has also been enormously sustained by Harry’s story and looks more closely at her middle-aged son’s grievance regarding his father refusing to raise his pocket money all those years ago – and might even re-examine the trauma he claims to have suffered when she forgot to pick him up from school on more than one occasion.      

That said, all of us would still continue striving to ensure our children have better lives than we had ourselves.  More toys, more books, more time were all invariably on the agenda no matter what the state of our individual finances were.   Sadly the syndrome we are examining seems to only intensify with affluence so that the offspring of the successful brain surgeon and defence lawyer are likely to eventually air the most poignant stories of emotional mistreatment.   

Happily, neglectful mothers like Laura and Josie optimistically maintain that money can sometimes do a great deal to alleviate the pain experienced by what was lacking in the past.   They both agree that parents who courageously shoulder their guilt and do their best to atone for it with expensive meals out for the whole family and Ipads for the grandchildren, may well find the accusations of past misery and neglect diminish somewhat – for a while at least.   And should mortified parents be in a position to provide it, large sums towards smarter homes in more upmarket suburbs might also work wonders with some complainants.

 Katie had tales to tell that supported the spectre of Elder Abuse but was definitely of the opinion that those not in a position to finance the wants and whims of middle-aged malcontents were ultimately better off.  I was personally relieved to hear that because we were definitely a family that didn’t have money to burn all those years ago, as were most of the families around us.  Lack of excess finance was happily the case back in the Bad Old Days when parents beat their children without thought thus laying the foundations that ensured they would undoubtedly grow up destined to over-indulge the next generation. Where does the ultimate responsibility actually lie I now wonder?   And do we always need a poet to explain it to us?

Something to Cry For ......

 

It was never wise to make too much fuss about matters my mother considered trivial, certainly not a good idea to cry too readily because that might create a state of affairs where I’d find myself in danger of being given Something to Cry For.   I didn’t want that because she was not in the habit of making totally idle threats and a swift slap across the face was most unpleasant.   Other children, boys in particular, when misbehaving to the point of drawing undue attention to themselves were simply advised to Wait Til Your Father Gets Home and once again these threats were not made vainly if the yelps and roars emanating from Northfleet sculleries and backyards after five o’clock was anything to go by.   And from what I gather the same went on in Swanscombe, Greenhithe and Gravesend too.   

Back then beating your children was nothing to be ashamed of and in fact could be seen as commendable.   It was even felt that they ultimately benefitted from the effort their parents put into these punishments and perhaps they did.   Generally it was hard later on to find those who bore grudges.   Trauma associated with the child rearing norms of the time was largely unheard of and would remain so for years; it would be decades before any of us became familiar with the term Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and when we did it seemed to be something to do with World War One and Auschwitz.   That’s not to say we were impervious to anything unpleasant that went on around us as anyone who can recall the first half of the 1940s will readily verify.   In fact it would be hard to find someone who could honestly say they were totally unaffected by the menacing tones of the air raid warning and even now, eight decades later do not instantly recognise the underlying threat the sound promised.

I suppose we were fortunate to have been born on the outer borders of the modern age of human resilience.  Our parents and grandparents were more hardy generations benefitting from a greatly defined sturdiness of resolve.   Life wasn’t easy but they didn’t expect it to be.   By the time we were born some of us were destined to harbour slightly different expectations and were definitely lining up to be just a little more indulgent with our own sons and daughters.   Although the war had definitely delayed the rate of progress, the times they were a-changing!

By the middle of the 1950s some ultra-progressive families like The Blakes of Pelham Road where my mother cleaned on Tuesdays for a few months, no longer smacked their twins, who apparently were in need of the occasional wallop if ever children were, and even allowed themselves to be addressed by their first names.   Their mother, was clearly proud of the liberal views the family held and over morning Nescafe and Nice biscuits tried hard to induce her Tuesday employee to follow her lead.  There was little chance of this, though my mother, always unwilling to speak her mind, tried to look interested, privately thinking that Summerhill School where Geoffrey and Gillian had their names down for the following year, sounded far too much like a place where the Kiddies Ruled the Roost.  As for your children using your given name when they addressed you, in her opinion this was shocking to say the least and indicated a very fast route to Reform School rather than a few expensive years at Summerhill.   It was in fact one of the twins addressing her as Nellie rather than Mrs Hendy that convinced her to take the job offer as a dinner lady at Gravesend Girls’ Grammar School.   It has to be remembered that this was still a time when neighbours were known as Auntie or Uncle by we children and one of my mother’s long term friends was still addressed, even by her as Mrs Bennett after many years.  These norms meant that many of us who were children in the 1940s and 1950s have little idea still as to how strangers should be appropriately addressed and meant that last week’s bright and breezy young plumber easily called me Jean whilst I called him Mr Seymour.    

Nevertheless, overall things have changed now of course, mostly for the better. In most up to date and forward thinking countries nobody, whatever their age or station in life might be, seems to have anything other than a first name and physically taking to children by way of punishment for general misbehaviour is not simply frowned upon but illegal.   Here in New Zealand it is now quite unlikely you would ever witness public displays of even minor discipline although the occasional daring Pacific Island child might still be subject to what my mother called a Clip Around the Ear.  The last time I actually witnessed anything of a disciplinary nature concerned a three or four year old on a supermarket shopping trip who unwisely decided to crawl among the frozen food cabinets sampling Ice Block flavours.   His mother’s wrath was palpable and his ability to deftly dodge the blows had to be admired and indicated he was a boy of some physical ability and life experience.  

These days of course we worry a great deal as to how our children might view us in years to come and it’s important to us to preserve ourselves in memory as compassionate parents who did not inflict unnecessary pain and suffering.  We certainly don’t want our adult offspring emulating Prince Harry for instance and informing the world of our shortfalls.   Not that Harry has so far accused his father of Clips Around the Ear but it can never be entirely ruled out for the future.   As I have already pointed out, being given Something to Cry For was no joke and so a part of me would definitely feel the first inkling of sympathy for Harry should it ever emerge that something similar happened to him.  

Double Jointed

 

          When I was ten it appeared to me that there was a great deal of kudos to be gained from having hypermobile joints.    The girls who crab-walked, turned cartwheels and did handstands at the drop of a hat were reliably liked and admired by others and were often described as Double Jointed in tones that indicated this was a state close to spiritual enlightenment.   Of course I had little idea as to what such enlightenment actually meant in everyday terms but I would have greatly enjoyed just a smidgin of the admiration and acclaim that seemed to accompany body flexibility.   It was definitely a Girl Thing because the boys gave most of their attention to football and fighting at playtime and at the time it appeared that most other ten year old females were able to perform advanced gymnastics at the drop of a hat.   I now realise that this probably wasn’t accurate at all and that even the ultra-flexible ones were simply attention seeking in order to keep those of us who clearly lacked this facility in our place.  Back then middle childhood was undoubtedly a minefield and even at the time I couldn’t help wondering why the ability to read and spell and put commas in the correct place couldn’t become more worthy but during my time wending a path through the quagmire of primary school this was never to be the case.

          I was always a reliably sedentary child and viewed most sporting activities with some horror and this attitude did not change much as I grew into adulthood.  There was no doubt whatsoever that my only interest in the acquisition of enough athletic skill to manage a cartwheel was for the obvious glory that accompanied it.   However, the hankering after body flexibility did not go away with the passage of time and was made more acute when my father noticed my shortcomings and commented that Molly from number 31 was a Great Little Gymnast and that I would need to practice hard to catch up with her.   I retorted much too quickly that I had no wish whatsoever to catch up with her but he simply laughed and said he didn’t believe me.   If Molly had not been my very best friend I might have begun to dislike her at that moment but fortunately that did not happen.  However, over the next few weeks I was to pay a great deal more attention to the manner in which she effortlessly executed her daily handstands against the end wall of Aunt Elsie’s sweet shop in Tooley Street.   There was no doubt at all as to her prowess and little possibility of me catching up.  

          It was to be she who made me aware of the athletic horrors that lay ahead in the form of the moderately well equipped gymnasium at Colyer Road Girls’ Secondary Modern School which she was to enter a year before me. She was most impressed with all that the school had to offer and at the end of her first week we sat together on top of the Springhead Road railway bridge wall whilst she fully acquainted me with a comprehensive list of its merits.   The bridge was a favourite spot for significant dialogue and we felt important once sat astride it with the added excitement of the occasional passing beneath us of engines en route to Dartford, Woolwich Arsenal and London Bridge.   Springhead Road was formerly called Leather Bottle Lane which somehow or other we knew but we had no idea that York Road had formed part of Barrack Field on the east side of the lane and were unaware of the larger history of our surroundings.  Troops had been quartered in this area during the Napoleonic Wars precisely where St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Primary School stood, and still stands, alongside the railway and perhaps this is why the place felt somehow meaningful when there were matters of importance to be debated.  For us, at the time, everything concerning the rites of passage into the Secondary Modern School was noteworthy.  

          Molly announced that the place was exactly like a boarding school except you didn’t have to sleep there!    I should point out at this juncture that we had read a great many Enid Blyton school stories but apart from that were woefully uninformed regarding boarding schools.     I volunteered that not sleeping there sadly made midnight feasts a virtual impossibility but she thought they were not entirely necessary and in fact it was much more important to have prefects and games captains and absolutely essential to have a head girl.  None of these positions she pointed out were in evidence at St Botolph’s.    She became impatient when I started talking about the lack of organised games at our primary school and that I thought that was one of the best things about it.  Although I admired those rosy faced active girls who rushed around throwing and catching balls the thought of joining in the so-called Fun horrified me.    Colyer Road Secondary Modern Molly further explained, after a dramatic pause, did not actually have Lacrosse or Tennis like Malory Towers but it did have Netball and Rounders which she now concluded was far more sensible.  And what’s more all pupils were in Houses and wore associated coloured bands when put into teams.   She was in Keller House and had a blue band – and had I heard of Helen Keller?  I was silent and picked at the dropped stitches in the red and blue jersey my mother had knitted and that I was attempting to grow out of as fast as possible.

          It was at this stage that she began to tell me about the exciting gymnasium that was called The Gym for short exactly the same as in First Term at Malory Towers.  There were extraordinary bits of equipment there with names like The Horse and The Buck and all the students were instructed to line up and hurtle towards them, the object being to fling themselves onto or over them.   Molly’s eyes went misty in exactly the same way as they did when she discussed the latest Doris Day musical – she said it was fantastic fun.   It sounded alarming to me.   I wanted to ask what happened if you couldn’t quite manage the exercise but restrained myself.  Instead I wondered if the classes were compulsory or whether they could be treated more like a hobby.   She gave me to what I later learned was a withering glance.  

          Within a short time of entering the school myself the following year I was to discover remarkably rapidly that the part of the syllabus known by the acronym PE and fitting into the timetable twice weekly was unsurprisingly as compulsory as mathematics.   The activities that shaped each forty minute class were exactly as had been described and there was much more besides including a range of balls and hoops with which to play a variety of fast moving and unpleasant indoor games.  

          The PE teacher was a slightly overweight young woman with red curly hair called Miss Finch.   She wore what I, and many of the adults around me it later transpired, considered to be a rather indecent outfit that appeared to have been originally designed for children under the age of three.   As she accompanied us on our daily walk to the senior school cafeteria each lunchtime we were able to witness how much attention this mode of dress attracted from workmen cleaning windows, on building sites or simply riding bikes.   One day we were shocked but delighted when a dustbin man advised her in very loud tones that she was a dirty cow and to put some clothes on.   Miss Finch stood a little straighter and simply tossed her curls.   Margaret Snelling who was walking beside me said it just wasn’t practical for her to keep changing in and out of the gym dress and that ought to be obvious.   This slight dilemma of dress certainly made the walks to and from school dinners more eventful than they might have been.

          During my two years at the school I was never able to overcome my abhorrence of PE, Netball and Rounders and consequently Miss Finch and I were destined never to Get On.   In fact I very soon formed the opinion that she went out of her way to embarrass and humiliate me.   I had no aptitude whatsoever for anything she tried to teach us and was not willing to make even the slightest effort so I can hardly blame her.   And although I would not have admitted it at the time all the gym activities so dear to her heart seemed inherently perilous to me and the entire sphere of physical activity filled me with dread.   Alongside Mathematics there was no subject I feared and loathed more. 

Considering this it was surprising that many years later when dancing alongside others at Murray’s Cabaret Club I had been able to learn the often intricate steps with moderate ease.   Even more astonishing and further on in time as the mother of three young children I suddenly found to my considerable surprise that I was able to crab walk.   This greatly impressed my eight year old daughter but oh what I would have given to have been able to perform this trick when I had been around the same age!   I’d like to say that I was then able to effortlessly add handstands and cartwheels to my adult repertoire but to be honest I wasn’t courageous enough to give them a go!    

The Gin Palace

 

Picture Palaces may have offered my mother and her sisters a taste of the kind of luxury that was totally absent from their impecunious lives in the 1920s and 1930s but for the previous generation or two, for the women of the late Victorian era that degree of lavish opulence was only to be easily found in the rather more socially challenging Gin Palace.   Whilst her daughters were to fantasise about unlikely encounters with the stars of the silver screen, Old Nan Constant considered such notions as Silly as Cats’ Lights and had always found her own solace and consolation by getting up close to the sumptuous interiors offered by purveyors of alcoholic beverages.   

Day to day life lived of necessity in surroundings that could at best be described as neglected, at worst as squalid, confidently led to a degree of alcohol dependence for some.   My maternal grandparents Margaret and Edgar Constant were definitely in that category, my grandmother at the forefront.   The little Constants were accustomed to being regularly left to their own devices whilst their parents drank in the nearest place that proffered mirrored walls and etched windows along with the tipple of their choice.   Their largely uncomplaining offspring were quite familiar with feelings of hunger.  The oldest two, Maggie and my mother, Nellie, frequently talked among themselves about food and how once they were grown-up they were going to learn to cook and would do so on a regular basis.   For their parents the sole place of relaxation over a decade or more was to be the gin palace or what passed for it in the local neighbourhood.   To step from the grimy pavements of North Kent onto gleaming tiles and into often quite exotic interiors was to leave life’s tribulations behind.  This the couple did on a regular basis.   Excusable perhaps for my grandmother who had spent large periods of her young life in the East End of London where her own mother, another Margaret grew to adulthood completely at ease among such places together with the Music Halls of the mid-Victorian era.

It is not completely clear when the Public-Houses of London, as distinguished from hotels, inns, chop houses and coffee rooms underwent the change necessary to transform from dingy abodes with sawdust strewn floors into something lofty and splendid.   There is no clear point when painted deal was lifted to polished mahogany, when small crooked panes of glass became magnificent crystal sheets, when basic, useful fittings were exchanged for luxurious adornments.  But along with these sensational conversions the middle aged, white aproned, overweight bartender also vanished and made way for smart young women, well dressed and smiling behind the bar.  These women were much envied by many of the female clientele and my grandmother longed to stand alongside them.  Just imagine working in a place where even the potboys were all at once handsome and dashing with cleaner aprons and more purposeful gaits than previously.

The very first purpose-built premises for the sale of gin had emerged in the late 1820s and before that the gin shops were quite small, often originally chemist shops as gin previously had medicinal associations.   Legislation had to change in order for purveyors of ale and wine to include it in their repertoire. The resultant and greatly anticipated saloons were based upon and emulated the smart new shops also being built at the time and fitted out at great expense with gas lights which a great many people considered to be vulgar.  Nevertheless this new-fangled lighting became hugely popular and Charles Dickens described it as perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the previous darkness that had prevailed for decades.  Little wonder then that Old Nan would later recall that her own mother and grandmother rushed hell for leather into the places that demonstrated it when it at last reached Bethnal Green.  But of course, as always the stories from the lips of our predecessors are half lost because they are never told at a time when we are most interested.  

Whatever the range of initial reactions from our antecedents, the newly created and ultra-smart habitations of gin vendors were central to ensuring that young women like Maggie Rearden and her future daughter were destined for a more exciting life or that is the way they came to view it.   Old Nan when in extreme old age still spoke glowingly of the most prominent of these bastions of alcohol.  Her most favoured still stand today and it is hard to know how much their magnificence has diminished over the years.   The Argyll Arms remains at Oxford Circus, originally built in 1742, parts of the place are scarcely changed from late Victorian times.  The mirrors which miraculously survived the Blitz are impressively massive.  The separated drinking areas still speak of the social divides of long ago when the upper and lower classes must not cross paths.   The place boasts spectacular wood and glasswork and rare surviving original fittings.  Maggie and Edgar, regularly frequented the place when en route to the races.

The Flying Horse that was once upon a time The Tottenham stands on the Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road corner.   Fondly recalled by my grandmother as also a Music Hall, the influence can still be seen in its design.  The Flemish Renaissance style of the exterior leads to a highly ornate interior with fine painted ceiling and elaborate murals of voluptuous nymphs by the celebrated Felix de Jong the leading Music Hall decorative artist of the times.   Old Nan recalled seeing the great Vesta Tilley there and sat alongside her mother as a small girl being as good and quiet as possible.

It is said that pub enthusiasts travel far and wide to see the stunning Viaduct Tavern in Holborn.   It was a favourite drinking place for special occasions for my Great Grandparents from soon after it first opened in 1869 and was conveniently situated by St Paul’s and therefore easily reached from Bethnal Green for a special night out.  Remodelling was carried out thirty years later and presided over by Arthur Dixon, a leading light in the Arts & Crafts Movement.  The exterior curves elegantly around a now frenetically busy corner and the interior is packed full with etched glass panels and large portraits that represent agriculture, banking and the arts.  There is an original Lincrusta ceiling, much admired at the time and a cashier’s booth where tokens were exchanged in days gone by to purchase gin or ale because the staff were not trusted to handle cash. 

My own feeling is that The Princess Louise in Holborn is still the most beautiful pub in London and a stunning example of what Victorian extremes could deliver.    It was built in the 1870s by the top craftsmen of the day and has more recently been recreated with outstanding authenticity.   Within there is an astonishing abundance of bright, fruit shaped tiles, glasswork and gilt mirrors.   For gentlemen a visit to the basement lavatory is a must to see the original tiled walls and fittings.

And still from London and still one of its most dazzling drinking places, The Punch Tavern in Fleet Street cannot be overlooked.   It was rebuilt in all its opulent glory in the 1890s by architects Saville and Martin and its extravagance is immediately apparent with the glazed tiled entrance and barrel-vaulted skylights leading to a bar that largely retains the original design.   A profusion of features survive from the mosaic floor and cut glass mirrors to the sumptuous tile work, ornate painted panels and pink marble bar.   A series of original Punch & Judy themed paintings from 1897 celebrate the fact that Punch magazine was founded nearby in 1841.

In the most forward thinking of the Gin Palaces special bars were often reserved for the use of ladies although it was understood that what were seen to be the more common and vulgar females of the city would not be permitted to enter and must stand alongside the men.   This my grandmother was happy to do on most occasions but when her Edgar had a win at the races and she was as a result wearing a new hat something inside her rebelled and she was apt to saunter into the forbidden areas, generally not being challenged.

 Many years later when the memory of the Gin Palaces was diminishing she would smile when speaking of them because they were magical places, allowing those at the very bottom of the social heap to effortlessly enter into dream worlds where anything was possible.  Even in the 1950s she maintained that you could keep your Picture Palaces because they were not a patch on the Gin Palaces from way back.   Anyone who disagreed was as Silly as Cats’ Lights.    Now I wish I had asked more questions!

Palaces For The Proletariat

I really can’t remember when Going to the Pictures, a term we were all familiar with, became Going to the Movies and sounded a lot more upwardly mobile.    Any cinema visit was certainly always referred to as the former when I was a child and well into my teenage years.   We York Roaders were avid Goers as and when we could afford to do so, whichever term was used.

In Northfleet there was only one cinema and it was called The Wardona and very popular with children because of the regular Saturday morning Picture Shows.   For sixpence apiece patrons aged four years and over could be seated by 9am and ready to enjoy the exploits of various cowboy heroes plus a number of lively cartoon shows, emerging into daylight again just a few minutes before noon.    Not that I was allowed to take part in this reliable weekend entertainment as often as I would have liked, the sixpenny charge being apparently Daylight Robbery.   Quite apart from that it was likely to be the Ruin of my eyes.    As I grew older I began to understand the reasons why the robbery by daylight seemed to apply more to us than others but the business of eye damage that my mother knew about and other mothers did not remained mysterious.

According to my grandmother The Wardona had started life as The Astoria and first opened in December 1929.   In its heyday it had an attached dance hall and a café that attracted couples from far and wide on Saturday evenings.   On weekdays after school, girls with mothers who were keen on them learning Ballet or Tap or sometimes both, had their regular dance lessons there.   I envied them just as much as I envied the Saturday morning picture goers but of course these activities were naturally enough another avenue where thieves and raiders lurked in daylight.

The first film I actually remember seeing was Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs in which the evil Queen managed to completely terrify me with the aid of her horrifying magic mirror.   My next major emotional trauma came via Bambi a little later when the forest fire and the fawn’s pitiful calling for his mother had me sobbing hysterically for more than a week.  I think at that stage my own mother began to re-assess the wisdom of these afternoon treats that were supposed to ensure that the mid-war years were more agreeable.   Our next matinee viewing concerned Mrs Miniver during which I was simply bored and complained bitterly enough to ensure that she was not able to benefit as much from the extravagance as she had anticipated.

We saw none of the above at The Wardona but always ventured further afield taking a bus trip into Gravesend.   There were four cinemas in Gravesend, The Super, The Plaza, The Regal and The Majestic and as far as my mother was concerned The Majestic was the grandest of them all.   She was often heard to say that there was no doubt whatsoever that they were issued the very best of the available films and the place itself was not only always clean and tidy with the ash trays reliably emptied on a daily basis, but you could listen to the wonderful Wurlitzer Organ just like the one played by Reginald Dixon at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool.    In fact the organ she referred to was a Compton with a fully illuminated console and a grand piano attachment and it was by no means played on a daily basis.  The theatre had first opened in October 1931 with a film called Rookery Nook, starring a long-forgotten actor called Ralph Lynn.   Over the years it was to have a number of owners and changes of name but was always known to us as The Majestic. 

Over time the frisson of excitement associated with the place continued and the greatest thrill of all was going to see something special on a Friday or Saturday evening with both my parents whilst my brother was Minded by Mrs Bassant next door.   Then we might have to join a long queue outside and could observe the important looking usher in his striped trousers and black jacket strutting up and down and advising in loud tones that there were Seats In All Places.   This was a very reassuring cry because we were perpetually anxious that the much dreaded House Full sign would be displayed before our tickets were firmly purchased.

Films my father agreed to see were generally of a more edifying nature than those appealing to my mother who didn’t really mind what she saw because the occasion itself was sufficiently energising especially with a bag of sugared almonds in her purse.   Either way I remember The Grapes of Wrath, Rope and Miracle on 34^th Street.  However, the intricacies of most of what we saw simply passed me by with the exception of Fantasia which my father and I saw together one afternoon and where I was totally captivated by the music.

Old Nan, whose fondness for field work wherever it was available throughout the county, said she didn’t think The Majestic was much cop compared with the likes of The Pavilion Picture Palace that opened before the First World War in the very centre of Maidstone.  Her Edgar had taken her there on many a Saturday night during the Hopping Season.   And to be fair even that place, grand thought it was, didn’t have the edge always present at the old Scala in Dartford where she first saw film clips from the first World War.   What a Saturday night that had been to be sure, seeing their boys in the very process and action of war.  There in front of you so you could see with your own eyes and not have to look around for somebody who could read.  My grandmother, never having attended school at any stage in her life, was completely illiterate and as children we unkindly saw this as the bane of our lives when we were required to read the Daily Mirror headlines to her.

  But none of these places were a patch on that magnificent and breathtaking structure in North West London, the legendary Gaumont State, because that was a sight for sore eyes if ever there was one and undoubtedly fit for royalty should they ever decide to go there.  In fact The State seated an astonishing 4000 and its illuminated tower could be seen for miles around.  Its aim was to provide a comfortable and effortless pathway into the golden and glamourous world of Hollywood, a place that by then sat firmly adjacent to paradise for much of the clientele.

  The interior was designed in the ever more opulent style of the times ensuring that even those at the very bottom of the social heap such as us were afforded a glimpse of sumptuous magnificence simply by entering.  And although my grandmother might have initially doubted it, a visit to that celluloid world was absolutely permitted no matter which level of deprivation you sprang from.   Patrons could be certain that the staff in their splendid blue and gold uniforms would do nothing to prohibit a few hours of connection with the palatial surroundings just as long as a ticket had been purchased.

My mother was taken there by my father on the occasion of their engagement when they saw Gone With The Wind which was four hours long and they had tea and biscuits during the intermission.  The queue for tickets was so long her feet killed her in the smart new shoes with silver buckles.  But it was a worthwhile experience despite the journey on the back of the bike because she certainly was not a natural pillion passenger.   In a small way The Majestic in Gravesend put her in mind of The Gaumont State in a manner that places such as The Plaza and The Super never could.

My generation were to be suddenly and strangely much less affected by glitzy plush surroundings and were unconcerned as to how frequently ash trays were emptied.   We had no desire to put on a cloche hat over our Marcel wave and dress for a night at the picture palace.   Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino along with Greta Garbo and Mary Pickford had been flung well into the past and we had turned our attention to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Doris Day and Mitzi Gaynor,  Marlon Brando and James Dean,  singing along with them when fitting, discussing their life-styles and poring over fan magazines.    

Going to the Pictures had undergone a change and films now played as part of a continuous programme which meant that it was possible to forge a different relationship with the once glorious spaces in which we saw them.   Patrons could come and go during the day and evening and spend as much time as they liked, often watching a programme through twice.  Although Multiplex Mini-Cinemas were still well into the future, by 1958 perhaps Going to the Movies had almost arrived! 

No Aptitude for Gardening .....

Thinking back into what has definitely become the dim and distant past I have come to the conclusion that nobody in our family ever had much interest in gardening nor any real ability for it.   I can’t wholly blame this failure to engage with the wonderful world of horticulture on working class deprivation tempting though it may be because a great many of our neighbours in those narrow long ago Northfleet terraces managed to turn their little backyards into an enviable explosion of colour each year. Others produced a variety of vegetables and generously shared them with those who lacked the necessary skills to do likewise.   Our gardening skills, as previously documented in some detail, never amounted to much more than stripping Lord Darnley’s woods of primroses on a regular basis. 

Decades later when living in an idyllic acre of native bush in Kohimarama, gardening featured only on the periphery of life from time to time when the children decided they wanted to grow something and small plots had to be laboriously hewn to enable them to do so.   I took as little interest as possible but dutifully cooked and ate the resulting pumpkin and broccoli.  

Moving into this City Fringe Cutting Edge Complex once all three had definitely moved on into adult lives in various parts of the world, gardening could not have been further from my mind.   In fact it only crossed my consciousness when I noticed how others managed to make their Parnell mini-courtyards burst into radiance on a regular basis.   I needed to emulate them and so I put Himself in charge of the project and dutifully trailed behind him at the garden centre only occasionally demanding particular pieces of plant life which largely centred around the dramatic and formidable Yucca.   The information sheet warned that the Yucca was not altogether suitable as a patio plant because of the horrendous damage it could wreak upon the eyes of the unwary but I was able to ignore that advice until it actually happened.    Even then the Yucca wasn’t banished, simply treated with a great deal more respect.   Generally our courtyard was a moderate blaze of glory via Marigolds and Petunias and various other species that were reasonably drought and pest resistant together with a sensible range of kitchen herbs. 

I first noticed the difference some weeks after Himself died and I began to emerge from that initial distortion of normal life that extreme grief brings.  The Auckland Spring still hovered ahead of Summer when I sidled into Kings Garden Centre just as it opened and attempted to look confident among the astonishingly robust octogenarians collecting plant life following their regular morning summer or winter Orakei Bay swims.   I loaded my trolley with Petunias, the only patio plant I still actually recognised and then nervously checked the labels just to make sure.  An hour later and unduly anxious about the technicalities of the actual planting process I opted to simply place the Petunias in their allocated spots still in their plastic pots.

    A day or two passed before I admitted to myself that they did not look quite as eye catching as I had hoped and I hit upon what at the time seemed the brilliant idea of supplementing them with a range of plastic companions from the Two Dollar Shop.  A mere twenty-two dollars awarded me an astonishing array of blooms that appeared to have started life in the depths of the Amazon.   These I unhesitatingly and confidently planted in and around my slightly bemused looking Petunias.  Within an enviably short space of time and for very little cost I had become a courtyard horticulturist to be reckoned with and over the summer many an admiring comment was passed by impressed neighbours.    At times admittedly this was just a little embarrassing.     

          It has become rather more awkward since the sudden descent of winter which my Petunias greeted with a humiliating lack of resilience.   The comments from the keenest gardeners around me are now coming thick and fast, all impressed with my ability to tend and cultivate the vivid crop of tropical blossoms.   My aptitude for gardening is fast and alarmingly becoming legend!